The hamster is a popular model for taste studies and considerable effort has been focused on understanding the basic biological events that underlie taste stimulus reception in this species. However, our knowledge of the sodium and potassium sensing pathways in the intact hamster taste system is limited. The aims of this research are to extend our current electrophysiological and biophysical knowledge regarding sodium taste in mammals to the hamster, and to also provide information about the physicochemical basis of potassium ion sensing in this species. These finding will provide important insight about taste system function to researchers interested in stimulus coding strategies in the hamster taste system. Furthermore, the findings will be of fundamental importance to continued research directed at understanding mechanisms of functional regulation of sodium taste transduction elements. The pivotal role of the taste system in food selection makes its function an important clinical factor in diet-related health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer and malnutrition. Therefore, in addition to basic information about gustatory function, the proposed research will provide information that may ultimately be of significant clinical value with respect to changing gustatory function in human development, health and disease.